The present invention relates to electronic postage meters and more particularly, to electronic postage meters operating under control of a program and including non-volatile memories (NVMs), such as the type disclosed in the aforementioned related patent application.
Known electronic postage meter employing firmware such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,301,507, issued on Nov. 17, 1981, and assigned to Pitney Bowes, Inc. of Stamford, Conn. are programmed via ROMs to undergo a certain sequence of operations. Such arrangement is adequate for use with a particular postal system such as that presently employed in the United States. However, for an electronic postage meter to be capable of international usage, where the requirements of the postal systems of the various countries vary widely, a number of individual programs or software packages tailored to the requirements of each country to accommodate such variations would increase the programming costs significantly. Further, even in the United States, it may be desirable to provide for external tripping of the meter for testing.